For most folks, it is fairly easy to see why a professional in the field of health care, such as a surgeon or chiropractor, would need to possess massage liability insurance. Working with patients in a manner that may be aggressive or invasive certainly calls for such a safety net, despite one's confidence in his or her ability to treat patients properly.
Among massage therapists and bodyworkers, however, seeing the need for massage liability insurance may not seem so clear. Touch therapist typically focus on relaxing a client, easing her pain, relieving his stress and unwinding tight muscles. It may be difficult to picture any problems arising from such a healing scenario.
Regardless, as a professional practitioner of massage therapy or another form of bodywork, it is imperative that you protect yourself and your business by purchasing the right massage liability insurance. There are so many ways that strong massage liability insurance can help safeguard your success, with the safety net stretching from client complaints all the way to property damage.
If you are still questioning whether you, as a practitioner of healing touch, may need massage therapy liability insurance, it is necessary to consider a few sample situations. For instance, a client could come to you complaining of neck pain, which you address during the hands-on session. He seems pleased and relaxed as he leaves the session room, but a few days later you receive a troubling phone call. Apparently the neck pain has grown worse since the massage, and he believes your hands-on work is to blame.
As silly as this might sound, no one can predict how a client might behave following a session, especially a new client you don't know well. It is with these "loose cannon" clients that massage liability insurance can come in so handy. If a situation such as the above occurred with a touch therapist who was carrying the right massage liability insurance, she could simply call her insurance carrier to be guided through the process of handling this complaint, which would fall under the malpractice heading of professional massage liability insurance.
Let's look at another scenario in which a massage therapist or bodyworker would be quite thankful he or she was carrying massage liability insurance. A new client comes to you and fills out the appropriate background questionnaire before the start of the session. You notice that she's reported an allergy to nuts, which shouldn't apply to anything in your session room, so you proceed with the bodywork.
Hours after she leaves your practice, you receive a frantic phone call, asking you to look up all the ingredients in the massage lubricant you used during this client's appointment. Apparently, she has broken out in a full-body rash. You immediately go online to see the exact ingredients in your massage cream and find, to your dismay, that it does include several nut oils.
Although extracts from nuts are not believed to affect people with nut allergies, when applied to the skin, this is still a frightening situation to consider. Fortunately for the therapist with massage liability insurance, this kind of complaint would be covered in the category of product liability insurance.
As you now can see, there are good reasons for touch therapists to carry massage liability insurance. The annual rate is well worth one's peace of mind.
